LONG ISLAND OPINION; The Builders Are Trying To Undercut Us

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WHEN builders start explaining how we're all going to profit from their business ventures, taxpayers had better hold on to their wallets.

Such is the latest strategy of Long Island developers in their effort to make a killing on land in the pine barrens. They've launched a massive, well-financed disinformation campaign to con us into believing that their economic interests are the same as ours.

A recent salvo was fired in these pages by Michael LoGrande, the former Suffolk County Executive turned executive director of the Association for a Better Long Island. A.B.L.I. is the high-sounding name of a lobbying group comprised exclusively of big-money developers.

The controversy stems from Suffolk residents' attempt to protect environmentally sensitive pine barrens land. Citizens have twice voted - by majorities of 83 percent - for an 0.25 percent sales tax to acquire and preserve some 30,000 acres. This land provides a vital water recharge area for the underground reservoirs that supply virtually all of Long Island's drinking water.

In his article, Mr. LoGrande says that the 0.25 percent program ''has been working particularly well.'' He must mean particularly well for builders, since for Long Islanders, and the pine barrens, the program has barely worked at all.

In the two-plus years since the legislation was enacted, Suffolk County has acquired only one-tenth of the proposed acreage. In the meantime, builders have been hindering the process. In an attempt to jack up the value of their land, they are pressing for approval on a host of new development projects.

With the cozy cooperation of town planning boards, the builders seek quick, rubber-stamp approval of their projects. Then they turn to the county, building permits in hand, and demand inflated prices for their land. More than 200 proposals covering 43,000 acres of pine barrens have been breezing through this approval process.

What would be the effect of all this building? To start with, we can forget about acquiring the proposed 30,000 acres in the pine barrens, since only 7,000 acres would be left to acquire.

As to the effect on our drinking water, the truth is, no one has the slightest idea. That's because, in flagrant dereliction of state environmental law, the towns of Brookhaven, Riverhead and Southampton have approved project after project while steadfastly refusing to study their effects.

To stop the madness, the Pine Barrens Society, supported by over 100 civic and environmental groups, filed suit against the town and county agencies responsible for approving these projects. We argued that approval could not be given until an environmental impact statement is prepared, showing the cumulative effect of all this building on Long Island's water supply and its rare and endangered species.

For the Long Island community, the lawsuit brings state environmental law back into force, advances the clearly stated will of the people to protect their land and water and promotes plain old common sense, which dictates that you don't build on land and then acquire it, nor do you build first and later find out whether the water supply will hold up.

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Developers, on the other hand, see the suit as a threat to their efforts to fleece the taxpayer on the acquisition of pine barrens land. If a proper environmental impact statement is prepared, many of the proposed projects are likely to be rejected, forcing the poor unfortunate developers to settle for a fair profit based on the land's true value.

That's what the pine barrens controversy means to builders. Naturally, they are not eager to admit this, and so the disinformation campaign. Its aim: to rally opposition to the pine barrens suit. Its method: to double-talk us into believing that the lawsuit threatens our economy.

Consider Mr. LoGrande's recent article. In it, he attempted to portray the controversy as a dispute between those favoring development and those opposing it. This is a red herring: where is the disagreement? All Long Island agreed on the 0.25 percent acquisition program. Mr. LoGrande says even A.B.L.I. agreed. Besides, it's the law. So there's no dispute: those 30,000 acres are to be acquired, not developed.

Well, says Mr. LoGrande, the Pine Barrens Society ''seeks to prevent construction on nearly every piece of vacant land in Suffolk County.'' This is an outright falsehood. Mr. LoGrande is well aware that the Society seeks to postpone construction only in the pine barrens, until a cumulative environmental impact statement is prepared.

After concocting the disagreement about whether or not to build, Mr. LoGrande trots out the developers' timeworn song and dance about how building keeps property taxes low. Of course it does no such thing.

On the contrary, development increases property taxes: for more schools, police, sanitation and other government services. Everyone of us can see this for ourselves in what's happened to our tax bills over the last 10 years.

Long Island's developers must stop blowing smoke. To compel them to do so, we should demand that they answer a few basic questions:

(1) If you really favor acquiring 30,000 acres in the pine barrens, explain how you think this can be done, considering you've proposed to build on 43,000 of the 50,000 available.

(2) If you are as concerned as the rest of us about our drinking water, explain why you refuse to allow an impact study to be performed before you build.

(3) If you believe your interests are really our interests, explain why you find it necessary to deceive, dissemble and distort the issue every time you speak about it.

Until satisfactory answers are forthcoming, we should all remain suspicious. For when a group's arguments make no sense, when their leaders keep changing the subject and when they simply won't tell the truth, it's a sure bet somebody's trying to pull a fast one.

Richard Amper is executive director of the Long Island Pine Barrens Society.

A version of this article appears in print on May 27, 1990, on Page LI12 of the National edition with the headline: LONG ISLAND OPINION; The Builders Are Trying To Undercut Us. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe